Who’s Heading For Sparta?

Photos by Alexis Mercer
Story by Ken De Laat

Fremont vs Grant District Finals. Friday 7pm at Newaygo High School

Tough one to pick.
Fremont has been a juggernaut all season, capturing the WMC-Lakes title and piling up 19 wins in the process. This is a group of players who know each other well, play to each other's strengths and aren’t afraid to mix it up if the game calls for it. Coach Zerfas makes use of a pretty long bench and there isn’t much lost on the court when he goes to it. The catalyst for this group all season has been Mia Clemance.

And here lies the problem. The player Coach Z. describes as ‘the glue’ for his team is out with an untimely injury that will keep her in street clothes for this and any possible future games this year. On Wednesday her absence could be seen in the way the Packers started the game. Not just missed shots but few opportunities early on as Soarta used its physical style of play to silence the Packer offense. But it didn’t take long for the team to regroup. They went at the Spartans from distance to begin with, popping in enough triples to widen the floor a bit. Then they took over the glass. Chase was outstanding, Noordyk came in and provided a strong presence in the paint and DeKuiper could be found anywhere there was a scramble for the ball. Bennett and Ackerman hit some key buckets and they pulled away late to secure a spot in the finals. Now they have a game under their belt without ‘the glue’ and the talent on this team is augmented by the way they play together.

Grant has had an interesting season to say the least. A second place finish (thanks to Kent City) in the CSAA is a mark of a good season for any team, but there were title aspirations in Tiger country and a pair of overtime losses took those away.

The Tigers have Ashbaugh the all time leading scorer for Grant and to use an old expression, “You can’t stop her, you only hope to contain her.” She will get her points and teams know this. The strength of Coach Delamater’s  team is the ability of other players to hit their shots when she is being doubled by opponents and they have the talent to do so. Gragg, Rodriguez, Welch and Pleune have no fear when putting up shots and Ashbaugh and Rodriguez both excel at pulling down offensive boards. Krepps, Thompson and Obenauf come off the bench ready to contribute and are also valid options when the team needs points.

This should be a good one.
Grant cruised in their semi game with an obviously overmatched Comstock Park team but with or without Clemance, Fremont is not Park. 
The first time these teams played it was a grinder. The Tigers were up a bit at the half but ran out of gas in the latter stages of the game, which is understandable given they were playing for the first time in almost a month. Cancellations and Christmas break delivered a far too long layoff and the team went on to win their next 8 straight.

Officials really let the teams play on Wednesday. There was a lot of banging and bodies hitting the deck and I don’t recall seeing quite so many jump balls called in a game as I did during Fremont/Sparta. If the game is called tighter than those two games foul trouble might be a factor since Wednesday’s crowd saw about 30 more fouls than the referees seemed to see.

The Packers will need to get off to a good start and not seem rudderless as they did in the early stages of Wednesday’s game. The Tigers have to get production beyond Ashbaugh and win the battle of the boards.

Interestingly, whoever wins is probably looking at a rematch with Spring Lake next week in Sparta. The Lakers schooled the Packers in the season opener then took apart an undermanned Tiger team 2 weeks later.
But there’s been a lot of season since then.
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Two good teams, District Finals, and a shot at advancing to the Regionals.
Man. I love this time of year. Best show in town.

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